The golden age of America is fleeting fast into the night. The recent change of NASA’s official mission is a painfully clear picture of this. Whereas America was once a pioneer of the final frontier, we are no longer even attempting space exploration. The primary mission of NASA has been changed to humanitarian outreach, particularly to the Islamic community—under the Obama Administration. I could go into detail about the many pillars of American greatness that are crumbling—like the national credit rating being downgraded twice during Obama’s stay in the White House—but I’m guessing most of my readers can already see the sad truth all around them. In case you’re not part of that group, let me be frank with you.

Don’t call me a prophet, and I hope I never have to say I told you so. But one thing in this uncertain world is definite: AMERICA IS AT…

FT.com. Yahoo has decided to pull the plug on its portal service in South Korea in December after years of struggling to compete in one of the world’s most wired markets.

“Yahoo has faced several challenges in the past couple of years and decided to pull out of the [Korean] business to put more resources on global business and become more powerful and successful,” the internet service provider said on Friday.

Yahoo is a marginal player in South Korea’s internet search sector, having only 2-3 per cent market share.

Updated: It seems a week can’t go by without a new incident of plagiarism by some prominent journalist, and this week it’s Margaret Wente, a star columnist with one of Canada’s national newspapers, who has been found guilty of using content from other journalists and academics without crediting them. As others have in similar cases, Wente says it was a simple mistake, although she has apparently been disciplined (in some unknown fashion) by the paper’s editor-in-chief. But there is a much larger point here than just the fact that journalists can get sloppy, and that the internet is a fact-checking machine unlike any other: Just like Jonah Lehrer and Fareed Zakaria before her, Wente’s behavior — and the newspaper’s lackluster response to it — speaks volumes about the flaws of print and the corresponding benefits of online media and journalism.

The Warcraft game have come a long way in the past few years. And oddly enough, this blog’s internet traffic tells a story of that popularity. We are (the blog I mean) read even in Russia, blocked in China (not even one traffic out of millions), have reached Myanmar, Saudi Arabia and more countries I never knew existed. (But still blocked in China! C’mmon!)

Thousands of online consumers are leaving themselves at risk from scams and identity theft because of their online passwords, Yahoo reports today.

(A) third of people choose passwords made up of six or fewer characters, while 60% opt for passwords from a limited set of alpha-numeric characters.

With around 50% of people also using the same (or very similar) password for all the websites they use, there are concerns that they are unwittingly leaving themselves at risk of online fraud. (Read more…)

10 most commonly used passwords

The most common passwords

123456

12345

123456789

Password

iloveyou

princess

rockyou

1234567

12345678

abc123

Souce: Imperva

How to ensure your password is secure

DON’T…

don’t choose passwords that could be easily obtained by fraudsters – for example, your mother’s maiden name, your home address or the date of your birthday.

London – The number of Britons targeted by cybercrime is expected to overtake conventional crime for the first time next year.

Internet security experts claim that up to 19 million people will come under attack from hi-tech criminals, generally involved in identity theft.

While at one time, the biggest threat was a burglary or someone smashing a car window to grab a radio, today’s Britons are facing up to the growing menace of internet crime which can be carried out from thousands of miles away.

The success of “hacktivists” in targeting big businesses, such as the Visa and Mastercard credit card companies in the wake of the Wiki-Leaks furore, has highlighted concerns about cyber security.

A survey of UK police officers specialising in hi-tech crime found that 79 percent have noticed a steep increase in cybercrime activity within the past six months.